This two-match T20I series is easily the most inconsequential one going around in the cricketing world. Commerce and not cricket is what is driving it but then no one's complaining, save perhaps for the Indian captain Virat Kohli. Prior to the opener in Visakhapatnam, Kohli had said more ODIs would have made sense ahead of the World Cup. But then even Kohli has only so much say in these things. It's the television people who make all the rules these days and given the kind of money they pour in, you can't really grudge them their pound of flesh.

Of course the flip side of the huge bids that broadcasters of Indian cricket are forced to make to secure the rights are the excessive advertisements the viewer has to endure between overs and when wickets fall. During the first game at Vizag, for the viewer many of the overs started with the bowler half-way into his run-up. It has turned off one group of people so much that they opted to buy expensive tickets and make their way to the Chinnaswamy Stadium here for the second and final T20I, rather than gather at someone's home like they had got used to doing.